Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Out of Africa – Beach Calligraphy






Out of South Africa comes the truly unique work of Andrew van der Merwe – beach calligraphy, he calls it. Andrew writes about his work: “If a calligrapher is someone who loves writing, then I have been a calligrapher since my very first writing lessons. Or is it just a love for women? I dunno but I did think the teacher who gave me all those gold stars was beautiful! Either way, it wasn’t women who had me breaking my academic trajectory in philosophy and politics, but calligraphy. To help pay my way, I started freelancing while I was at university and went full time soon after that.

I also love the surf and the beach and have always enjoyed scratching words in the sand with sticks. Sticks make more of a mess than a mark, so this led to the special shaping of the sticks and to the development of various instruments to achieve better results and ultimately to ways of cutting the sand out to leave a neat V. The V was a great discovery, not only for its neatness and shadow, but because it sets up a lovely contrast between the typical, permanent V of stone carving and the wonderful, temporal quality of the beach calligraphy.

I also developed ways of avoiding footprints, and this is often what impresses people most, but for me the real challenge remains getting the letter forms good. Any calligrapher will understand that!”

Above is just a small sampling of his work. He has more online at www.behance.net/beachscriber, and you can buy prints at www.beachscriber.artfire.com or www.beachscriber.imagekind.com.

14 comments:

nikheel said...

AMAZING STUFF!
Thanks for sharing, Alice

Louvregirl said...

amazing. I would love to come upon it as a discovery; other-world-like for sure. thanks :)

Roann Mathias said...

Alice,
Thanks for putting this blog together! What amazing works you have found! Thanks for the link!
Roann

J said...

Thanks for the post. Great blog too.

J

Shannon Wilson said...

I could spend all day on your blog! Thank you for the great links and photos of your beautiful work.

Jeannette StG said...

Wow, amazing work -thanks for sharing!

SKIZO said...

Fabulous
Work
good
creations

Silver Strands said...

WOW! Those are truly, truly amazing!!!!
Thanks for sharing :)
Denalee

Dive Boracay said...

How absolutely magnificent! I am moved by the exquisite beauty of your post.

Alex Anderson said...

Amazing!!!!

Zeb said...

Oh! WoW!!! absolutely rocking! :)

peggy aplSEEDS said...

wonderful!

Maria said...

OMG! It's great, breathtaking and fascinating. Wild Africa can really attract without any sightseeing and jungles!

Jon said...

Andrew's beach calligraphy looks absolutely stunning. I have never seen it before.